The Richest Woman in Town Claimed Me as Her Lost Daughter on Stage, Then I Read the Date on Her Lab Report novel · Chapter 12 of 24
Chapter 12: Barbara Alone on the Porch
The fire chief shook Barbara's hand for the photograph.
Half the room was still clapping, and the other half was looking at the floor.
Tom put down the paper plates, took off his apron and folded it on the counter.
He did not look at Barbara, and he did not look at the camera.
He walked out the back door into the dark, and I followed him.
We stood in the gravel by the creek.
The noise from the firehouse came out through the wall.
"It's a leash," Tom said.
"I know."
"She didn't give us a truck. She gave the whole county a reason to say thank you to her in front of you."
"Tom, I'm sorry."
"Don't." He pushed his hands through his hair. "I'm going to tell the chief to take it. It's three thousand gallons, and people live in those barns."
"You should take it."
"And I'm not going to take her calls, and I'm not going to say thank you into a camera."
"She'll tell people we're hers now."
"She can tell them." He looked at me finally. "Doesn't make it true."
He drove me home in a silence that was not angry, only full.
He parked at the curb on Putnam Street and left the engine running.
Across from my mother's porch light was a place where the curb dipped, in front of the neighbors' old maple.
He was looking at it.
"Can I tell you something I should have told you Saturday?" Tom said.
"Yes."
"It's about Barbara. It might not mean anything."
I turned in the seat to face him.
"October, eleven years ago," he said. "I was twenty. I'd been on the department three weeks, and they had me flushing hydrants on this street at one in the morning because I was the rookie."
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